As part of this year’s Baltic Focus, on the eve of MENT 2023 we will host the projection of three Baltic films. Three colorful postcards that provide an insight into history and themes that are usually hidden from the general public.
FREE ENTRY
Jelgava 94 / Latvia, 2019
English subtitles, 88 min
28. 3., 19:00
Jelgava 94 is in equal parts a coming-of-age film and a portrait of the cultural chaos that reigned in former communist states during the 1990s, serving as a stark reminder of what has been left behind when border countries like Latvia regained their independence.
This film takes us deep inside the world of Latvian teenagers in the 90s by combining the intimate diary of a teenager Jānis, who is trying to find himself by joining a subculture, and a detailed, almost documentary-like depiction of the beginnings of Latvia’s second independence. Jelgava ’94 is a portrait of a generation in the 1990s who are searching for their own identity and are fans of alternative culture. This is a touching story about the familiar story of youngsters who are against the whole world and are trying not to become “one of them”. But can one keep the promise? The story, set in 1994 in the Latvian city of Jelgava, is based on the bestseller by Jānis Joņevs, a winner of the European Union Prize for Literature in 2014.
TECHNO, MAMA / Lithuania, 2021
English subtitles, 18 min
28. 3., 20:45
Nikita loves listening to techno music and dreams of going to Berlin and visiting the famous club Berghain. His mother Irena doesn’t know about her son’s dreams and soon enough their mutual expectations will clash.
Directors comment:
TECHNO, MAMA is a film about the teenager Nikita, who tries to pursue his “techno” dream, but the real “techno” in his life is his abusive mother. The main topic of the film is domestic violence against children. It’s still a huge problem in Lithuania and, as a director, I want to talk about it because it has such a big impact on young souls. I want to ask the viewer in the film: “Why is it so hard to love each other?”. The film is an essay about two Lithuanian generations that didn’t find a way to love each other. It’s a story about kids who didn’t have a childhood because their dreams were lost in post-Soviet urban yards.
Nominated for the best European Short Film at the European Film Awards 2022
u.Q. / Estonia, 2021
English subtitles, 83 min
28. 3., 21:05
The documentary film about musician Uku Kuut and his mother, singer Maryn E. Coote (or jazz/soul diva Marju Kuut, as she was better known in Estonia), takes viewers on a geographical, political and musical journey. Illustrated by a pop-infused collage made of home footage, interviews and stylised photographs, the mother & son duo travel from the Soviet Union to a recording studio in Los Angeles, via high school in Sweden, and back to the newly independent Estonia. With visuals aligning the story through their dynamism and unpredictability as they tour through different, niche musical subgenres, Uku and Marju’s life story is a veritable Greek comedy captured on 8mm, VHS and BETA tape.
Starring, among others, Estonian musicians Mart Avi, Florian Wahl, Maria Minerva and Helina Risti.
“Ivar Murd covers the whole story of Uku’s relatively short but somewhat adventurous life, during which he travelled to many places and saw many changes of system, in a very snappy fashion”
Marko Stojiljković, CINEUROPA
Winner of Audiovisual Art Endowment Fund Award of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, 2021
Best Music Film – Days of European Film, 2022
Best Editing – EFTA, 2022
Best Sound Direction – EFTA, 2022
Organisation: MENT Ljubljana/Kino Šiška
